Sunday 31st Jan

I worked on my material for the NRL visit in the morning, then took a bus to the Haight area in the afternoon. I began by ascending the hill at Buena Vista park for some good view action. My appetite had finally recovered by this point, so despite a morning’s worth of giant burrito munching I still wanted more. It is as if my body was trying to compensate for an entire week’s calorific loss. I went into a tiny café to get a bagel, and came to regret it as despite being the only person there it took the guy about 25 minutes to make it. He must have toasted the bagel on the lowest heat ever as that bit took a good 15 minutes or so. He lovingly laid on each topping painfully slowly, and then proceeded to mummify the finished product in several layers of paper. Trying to eat the thing was like trying to get to the end prize in pass the parcel.

I walked down the length of Haight, stopping to admire the comprehensive collection in Amoeba Records. After this exertion, I went into Golden Gate park for some more resting in the sun. I saw an exceptionally hairy giant dog.

The evening was spent trying to fix up my seminar. I dry ran it to myself and the bloody thing lasted an hour and ten minutes to my shock, although I only have 40 minutes’ speaking time allocated. I proceeded to chop out about half the slides I had so diligently put together. For a quick dinner fix I went to a food court in a shopping mall nearby (another example of American dining that I genuinely like!) and got myself a veggie burger. It was actually a little disappointing given how much I paid for it. I rediscovered half a bottle of wine left over from the vineyard tour and had a glass as it would have been an awful shame to let it go to waste.